English by skill

English is easier to make progress in when you stop treating it as a monolith. A learner who reads comfortably but freezes in conversation doesn't need more English in general — they need the pragmatics of it. These four groupings are the ones the level test scores you on separately, so a weak result in one of them points straight at the articles below it.

The four skills

• Grammar40 articlesThe rules behind the sentence: tenses, articles, word order, conditionals. The skill most learners have studied most and trust least, usually because it was taught as a table to memorise rather than as a choice between meanings.
• Vocabulary36 articlesWords, and the company they keep. Beyond single-word vocabulary this covers collocation and phrasing — why you make a decision but take a photo, and why a technically correct word can still be the wrong one.
• Conversational25 articlesEnglish as it is actually used between people: how to soften a refusal, ask for something without sounding blunt, or read what a polite reply is really saying. The skill that separates correct English from natural English.
• Reading23 articlesGetting meaning off the page at speed — working out an unfamiliar word from what surrounds it, following a long sentence without losing the thread, and reading for the point rather than for every word.

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